As children, we are pretty good at following directions by the age of 5. When the teacher says to stand in a straight line, kids stand in a straight line and even help others do what the head of the classroom says. Children learn that police officers enforce laws and rules. If the doctor says to take a specific medication, most are inclined to follow the orders. At a young age, a child learns how systems work as well as how the simplest of systems fail. Depending on the child’s environment, the language of failure can easily embed itself into the thinking patterns. One can define failure as not winning, not succeeding at a given task, or giving up. What do children who experience failure do? Do they perceive the situation as lights out and never come out of the dark room or do they embrace the situation and actually see light at the end of the tunnel? That’s the resiliency gradient. We have the ability to strengthen that resiliency muscle at any age. Just depends on whether we want to or not.

Awareness of your own resiliency range can assist you in understanding how much you can and want to achieve in life.